Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/524

 pe no voods any more.” And after a pause he slowly continued: “Ven I am not here any more, den dey vill go too, but dat is vat I can't help.”

“Come ofer here vonce. I haf a liddle bresent I vant to gif you,” John called out to me, holding a book.

It was a mystical treatise upon the Book of Revelations which had belonged to his great-grandfather, Samuel Pennypacker, who had entertained Washington at Pennypacker's Mills, and who had laboriously read through the book twice, marking each day's progress and making comment. John had had it bound in Norristown.

“John, you ought not to part with that book.”

“Ach! I saw you look all ofer dat pook vonce and den I know you vants to take it pack vere it vas. Dat is all right, I dalk it ofer wiss my vife and she say, ‘Vat do I vant wiss such olt pooks chust to lie arount in de vay and make a dust. Gif it to de Governor, vor all I gares.’ And so chust you dake it along, and velcome.”

“Haf you begun to do your seeting?” asked John on the 8th of September, when the ground and the weather were both favorable for the wheat.

“No? Oh, vell, dere is dime enough yet. My fadder used alvays to say to me if it is September den it is not too early, and so long as it is September yet, den it is not too late.”

“I vas up in Percks County to see Chames Pannebecker,” he reported after returning from a two days' trip with his wife and daughter.

“Dere vas dree of dem Pannebeckers—Chames and Chon and Richard. Chon vas an old patchelor and he vas chust not so pright, and he goes to lif wiss Richard and den he makes a vill and gifes to Richard all vat he has. Dere vas a creat lawsuit about dat vill and dey don't speak to 504